Bethlehem Clarinet Festival

Monday, February 18, 2008

Dr. Deborah Andrus, director

"Clarinets on Presidents Day"

The clarinet program at Moravian College is pleased to present the first Bethlehem Clarinet Festival. A day of recitals, workshops, clarinet expo, master classes, and a concert featuring the renowned chamber ensemble, The Verdehr Trio. Register now and bring your instrument to perform in the Festival Clarinet Choir.

 

FEATURING The Verdehr Trio

An acknowledged leader in the field of new music, the Verdehr Trio for over thirty years has concentrated on molding and defining the personality of the violin-clarinet-piano trio.  The Trio has over the years created a large repertoire by commissioning over 200 new works from some of the world's most prominent and exciting composers--known and unknown, young and old, from this country and abroad.   These efforts are entitled The Making of a Medium because, in a real sense, this is what has happened over the years.

A handful of earlier trios by Bartok, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Khachaturian, Berg, Krenek, Poulenc and Ives showed the potential tonal and musical possibilities of this grouping.  Now, with more than 230 total works in this genre, the violin-clarinet-piano trio has become a viable chamber music medium whose substantial literature may be recognized together with other major mediums as the piano trio, woodwind and brass quintets and the piano quartet.  To round out its repertoire with Classical and Romantic works, the Trio has rediscovered as well as transcribed 18th and 19th century pieces for inclusion in its concert programs.

The Verdehr Trio has performed throughout the world: in seventeen European countries, the former Soviet Union, in South and Central America as well as in Asia, Australia and in almost all of the United States. Among major concert halls where the Trio has appeared are Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Library of Congress, Vienna's Brahmssaal, Sydney Opera House, London's Wigmore Hall, Auditorio de Madrid, Dvorak Hall in Prague, IRCAM Centre in Paris and Leningrad's Philharmonic Chamber Hall. The Trio has also played at various international festivals--the Spoleto Festival, Prague Spring Festival, the Vienna Spring Festival, Warsaw Autumn, the Grand Teton Music Festival and at numerous international clarinet festivals. Recently the Trio received a Creative Programming Award from Chamber Music America. 

The Verdehr Trio is in residence at Michigan State University. An article about the Trio appears in the new Groves Dictionary of Music and the Trio won an Adventuresome Programming Award from ASCAP and Chamber Music America.

Tentative Schedule Of Events

8:00 am - Noon Registration & Coffee - Foy Lobby
Repairs by Scott Brodt of Nazareth Music Center
8:00 am - 4:00 pm Clarinet EXPO - Payne Art Gallery
Recital I  
9:00 am- 9:45 pm Sanders, Schwartz, Andrus, Pearson
In Foy Concert Hall
Clarinet Choir Rehearsal  
10:00 am - 10:50 am Bring your instrument and rehearse for the evening performance with Neil Wetzel, Director of Jazz Studies in Foy Concert Hall
Master Class I  
11:00 am - Noon Master Class with Raphael Sanders
In Foy Concert Hall
Lunch Break  
Noon- 1:00 pm Lunch on own on campus or in a Main Street eatery
Master Class II  
1:00 pm - 2 pm Master Class with Deborah Andrus and John Schwartz
In Peter Hall
Master Class III  
2:15 pm - 3:30 pm Master Class with Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr
In Peter Hall
Break  
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm Visit the Displays in the Payne Art Gallery!
Clarinet Choir Dress Rehearsal  
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Clarinet Choir (Bring Your instrument)
In Foy Concert Hall
Dinner Break  
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm Dinner on own on campus or in a Main Street eatery
Recital II  
6:30 pm - 7:15 pm

Allentown Symphony Clarinet Trio performing Reisteter premiere and Festival Clarinet Choir conducted by Neil Wetzel
In Foy Concert Hall
Featured Concert  
7:30 pm

The Verdehr Trio
In Foy Concert Hall

REGISTRATION & FEES

Full Program (including Verdehr Trio concert): 
$40 General / $20 Student (postmarked by Feb 8)
$50 General / $25 Student (after Feb 8)

Verdehr Trio concert Only: 
$15 General / $10 Student

Bethlehem Clarinet Festival T-shirts
$8 each (Adult sizes only: S, M, L, XL, XXL)

Registration Form (PDF)

For more information call 610-861-1650 / email music@moravian.edu

Act 48 credit available for K-12 educators.

Sponsors

 

Moravian College Music Program

Moravian is a private, coeducational, selective liberal arts college located in eastern Pennsylvania tracing it's founding to 1742. It is recognized as America's sixth oldest college. Music degrees include a Bachelors of Arts in Music and a Bachelor of Music in performance (vocal, instrumental, jazz), music education, composition, or sacred music.

The Bachelor of Arts program allows for musical study within a liberal arts curriculum. The Bachelor of Music is for students who desire more comprehensive music studies. Study in clarinet includes private lessons, ensembles, clarinet pedagogy, clarinet literature, twentieth century techniques, and recitals.

 

Performer Bios

DEBORAH ANDRUS is the second clarinetist with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, and is a member of SATORI, the Southeastern Trio and the East Winds Quintet. Before moving to Pennsylvania, she held the principal clarinet position with the Natchez Opera Festival Orchestra, and has performed with diverse ensembles throughout the United States. Dr. Andrus performed at the International Clarinet Association Clarinetfest in Atlanta, GA in August 2006, performing Matthew Quayle's Trio, a work she commissioned in 2004. She also commissioned De Profundis by Patrick Long, which she played at the Potsdam Single-Reed Summit in October 2006. In 2008, Dr. Andrus will perform at the New Jersey and Oklahoma Clarinet Symposiums.
Dr. Andrus is the Artist-Lecturer in Clarinet at Moravian College, Susquehanna University and Lehigh University. Formerly, she was Professor of Clarinet at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi and at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. She earned her doctorate in 1998 as a Presidential Fellow at The Ohio State University. Originally from New York State, Dr. Andrus received her BM from The Crane School at SUNY Potsdam, and the MM from Michigan State University. Her teachers include Alan Woy, James Pyne, Theodore Oien, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr and Mark Nuccio. During the summer, she teaches and performs at the New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine. Dr. Andrus is an Artist-Clinician for the Buffet-Crampon USA Corporation, and plays Buffet R-13 clarinets.

VALERIE PEARSON is an active clarinetist and teacher in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. She holds a BA degree in Music from Moravian College, and a BSE degree in Paper Engineering from Western Michigan University. She is an artist-lecturer at Moravian College and at the Eastern Conservatory of Music in New Jersey. As a clarinetist, she currently plays in the Allentown Band and in the Moravian Clarinet Choir. Previously, Ms. Pearson performed with the Columbia Orchestra and the Columbia Concert Band in Columbia, Maryland, and the Chattanooga Concert Band and Chattanooga Clarinet Choir in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She has performed in master classes with Mark Nuccio of the New York Philharmonic, Robert DiLutis of the Rochester Philharmonic, and John Schwartz of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. Her primary teachers include Deborah Andrus, Christopher DiSanto, Marguerite Baker-Levin, Nikolasa Tejero and Maurita Murphy Mead. Valerie currently resides in Nazareth with her husband and two daughters.

STEVE REISTETER was born and raised in Bethlehem, PA. He is a member of the Allentown Band, the Allentown Symphony, the Hanover Woodwind Quintet and frequently plays in the the pit orchestras for area musicals. As a pop musician, he has performed with Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Hope, Clay Aiken, Johnny Mathis, Bernadette Peters, The Four Tops, The Temptations and the national touring company of “Grease.” A published composer, Steve’s compositions have performed across the world by such groups as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, the US Coast Guard Academy Band. He also has written theater and film scores. One film, “Tragic Irony,” for which Steve wrote and performed the score, was recently broadcast on the Discovery Channel. He is an elementary school vocal and instrumental music teacher in the Whitehall-Coplay School District and resides in Bethlehem with his wife, Johanna.

RAPHAEL SANDERS is currently Assistant Professor of Clarinet at the Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam. Dr. Sanders holds degrees from the University of Hawaii, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of North Texas. Raphael’s clarinet mentors include Robert Marcellus, David Breeden, Henry Miyamura, and James Gillespie. Originally from Hawaii, Raphael has performed with orchestras in San Francisco, Houston and New York, the USAF Band, and has taught at the college level in Texas and Nevada. Raphael performs regularly throughout the United States and abroad and recently returned from a 9-day residency in Canton (Guangzhou), China and a 4-day residency in Cardiff (Wales, UK). He is a member of the acclaimed group Texas Clarinet Consort, which has performed in Sweden, Belgium, France, England, Vancouver, and Mexico. Raphael performed his New York City debut recital in June 2005, followed by solo performances in Flushing, Douglaston, Manhattan, and the Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2006. Dr. Sanders is a performing artist with Buffet Crampon, conducts clinics and masterclasses throughout America, and recently completed a tour of Colorado and Texas. He is also a gold performing artist with D’Addario. He is currently the I.C.A. New York State Chair. At Crane, Dr. Sanders teaches applied clarinet, clarinet tech and directs the critically acclaimed Crane Clarinet Choir. In 1997 Raphael established the I.C.A. Orchestral Audition Competition. He has been teaching at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in the summer since 1998.

JOHN SCHWARTZ received his bachelor's degree from West Chester State and a master's degree from Temple University. Additional graduate study was done at Villanova University. His principal clarinet teacher was Anthony Liberio, a protege' of Gino Cioffi, former principal clarinetist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His tenure in the Bethlehem Area School District included teaching at Northeast Middle School and Freedom High School. During that time, he also served as an instructor at Moravian College teaching clarinet and woodwind techniques. Currently, he teaches clarinet privately and at the Community Music School in Allentown. Mr. Schwartz currently serves as principal clarinetist in the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. He has also played with the Allentown Band, Pottstown Symphony, Reading Symphony and in PA Sinfonia. Additionally, he organized and performed in the following chamber ensembles: Leval Woodwind Quintet, Allentown Symphony Woodwind Quintet and the Chaleureux Trio.

Dr. Neil Wetzel is Assistant Professor of Music at Moravian College where he teaches saxophone and is Director of Jazz Studies. Having earned both a BM (Jazz Perf.) and MAT degrees from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, in 2007 he completed the EdD program at Teacher's College, Columbia University. His dissertation focused on teaching jazz improvisation. As founder and music director of Moravian College's summer music camp, July Jazz Getaway, Mr. Wetzel has worked and played with Clark Terry, Al Grey, Terrell Stafford, Milt Grayson, Stanley Turrentine, and Bobby Watson. He has backed many great performers including Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, Bob Hope, Johnny Mathis, Bernadette Peters, the Temptations and the Four Tops. He has recorded with the Philly Pops Orchestra and singer Patti Page in Carnegie Hall; this CD won the 1999 Grammy for best Pop Traditional Performance. He can also be heard on four CD's with jazz pianist Eric Mintel: Live, Hopscotch, Dynamo and Four on the Floor. Mr. Wetzel has also played and taught at the Lana Jazz Festival in Lana, Italy as well as the Karel Velebny Jazz Workshop in Frydlant, Czech Republic.